Sébastien-Roch Nicolas Quotes
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There is as much expression in the feet as in the hands.
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Anyone whose needs are small seems threatening to the rich, because he's always ready to escape their control.
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Nearly all men are slaves for the same reason that the Spartans assigned for the servitude of the Persians -- lack of power to pronounce the syllable, "No." To be able to utter that word and live alone, are the only means to preserve one's freedom and one's character.
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Spero Speroni explains admirably how an author who writes very clearly for himself is often obscure to his readers. "It is," he says, "because the author proceeds from the thought to the expression, and the reader from the expression to the thought.
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Scandal is an importunate wasp, against which we must make no movement unless we are quite sure that we can kill it; otherwise it will return to the attack more furious than ever.
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It is inconceivable how much wit it requires to avoid being ridiculous.
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Life is a malady in which sleep soothes us every sixteen hours; it is a palliation; death is the remedy.
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Most of those who make collections of verse or epigram are like men eating cherries or oysters: they choose out the best at first, and end by eating all.
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Whoever is not a misanthrope at forty can never have loved mankind.
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Public opinion reigns in society because stupidity reigns amongst the stupid.
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All passions are exaggerated, otherwise they would not be passions.
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Vain is equivalent to empty; thus vanity is so miserable a thing, that one cannot give it a worse name than its own. It proclaims itself for what it is.
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In love, everything is true, everything is false; it is the one subject on which one cannot express an absurdity.
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Though we best know and cannot deny our imperfections, it is not for us to lose our self-reliance and true manhood.
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The person is always happy who is in the presence of something they cannot know in full. A person as advanced far in the study of morals who has mastered the difference between pride and vanity.
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Whatever evil a man may think of women, there is no woman but thinks more.
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It is passion that makes man live; wisdom makes one only last.
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We leave unmolested those who set the fire to the house, and prosecute those who sound the alarm.
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Running a house should be left to innkeepers.
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There are more fools than wise men, and even in a wise man there is more folly than wisdom.
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The great always sell their society to the vanity of the little.
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A good number of works owe their success to the mediocrity of their authors' ideas, which match the mediocrity of those of the general public.
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Secrecy is best taught by starting with ourselves.
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Intelligent people make many mistakes because they cannot believe the world is really as foolish as it is.